The American Printing House for the Blind has released a free tool which allows for the conversion of files in to digital braille format. The utility, called Send to Braille, is available for Windows, and allows for the conversion of files from Microsoft Word (both doc and DOCX), Rich Text format (RTF), and plane text (txt), in to the BRL format. By default, the conversion will be in to the UEB braille code, but there are instructions on how to change this on the Send to Braille utility page.
Installation was very simple, and the Send to Braille option then appeared in my Send To menu as "braille". In my brief testing, the utility was able to convert files very rapidly, with a 500 KB RTF file taking less than 10 seconds. No formatting other than paragraphs were preserved, but headings appeared on their own lines.
At the bottom of the Send to Braille page, APH encourages the development of other such utilities for other platforms, which could mean that they will not be developing such a utility for Linux or Mac. Further information about this utility, step by step instructions on using it, and more about Send to Braile can be found through the link above.
Source: American Printing House for the BlindCategory: News
In the instructions for customization it says: 1. Open the Lou Tran folder by activating the Run command and typing userprofileappdaalocalLou Tran into the edit box that appears That is not correct. It should say: 1. Open the SendToBraille folder by activating the Run command and typing c:usersyourprofileappdatalocalSendToBraille into the edit box that appears At least, that is what it shows on my Windows 7 64 bit machine.
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